Square Enix Before the Merger - A history of Squaresoft, Enix, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy

for decades now there have been two names absolutely synonymous with the acronym JRPG those two names are of course Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest the former is developed and published by Squaresoft and the latter was published and made famous by Enix although Dragon Quest never took off to the extent of Final Fantasy in the West in Japan the popularity of both series made Squaresoft and Enix household names fast-forward to the modern day and neither Squaresoft nor Enix are recognized game companies by up-and-coming gamers this is of course because of a merger from April of 2003 where the two companies became Square Enix there used to be a time when Final Fantasy was in direct competition with Dragon Quest while Dragon Quest owned the market share for JRPGs in their homeland they were being destroyed by Squaresoft in the West so what led to these companies putting down their swords and shields and joining forces how did they rise to such levels of notoriety before it happened and how much of a benefit was it for the companies to merge join me as we take an exhaustive look at the history of Squaresoft Enix and Square Enix much like how Nintendo built their empire selling playing cards and Tecmo began by offering building maintenance services Enix his beginnings were far detached from the world of video games while their beginnings were relatively humble and honest they wouldn't remain that way for long so let's turn back the clock and take a look at a man named Yasuhiro Fukushima guess who hero Fukushima born August 18th of 1947 studied the art of architecture in his early adult years after a few years of architectural work yes a hero would branch out and seek employment somewhere that allowed him more freedom and control on September 22nd of 1975 the freedom and control he was looking for was found by becoming his own boss and starting up his own company called a densha boshu service center though he was no longer working as an architect Yasuhiro was still dealing with real estate only this time it was from a completely different angle he densha boshu service centers first job was to advertise in magazines and newspapers looking for tenants to fill local apartment complexes edentia boshu service center was making enough money in real estate advertising that in 1980 they decided to take their company to the next logical step and open up a new subsidiary named edentia systems a danja systems primary form of income was in the trading and brokerage of local real estate with intent to sell nationwide although they made a strong attempt the plan to go nationwide began to seem very unrealistic very quick after only one year they called it quits in 1982 a dentist's was renamed to Enix corporation Enix corporation would shift their sites from real estate to the blossoming world of video games but they would not pursue their goal with much integrity the primary goal of Enix was never to make their own games but rather to find a way to profit off the games other people were making having no notoriety to their name in the world of video games Enix would have an uphill battle and their journey to the top would be a bloody one that would make them appear somewhat unscrupulous around this time several magazines would feature independent programmers who are making and releasing games for free on home computers several of these programmers were gaining a lot of exposure and getting a dedicated following in saw this and they formulated a plan Enochs his plan would be to hold a competition pitting programmers against each other the competition would be advertised in magazines the programmers who could make the best game would get their game published by Enix and be rewarded handsomely with cash royalties and vacations to make sure this competition would get traffic and be taken seriously Enochs contacted many of the up-and-coming freeware programmers they saw in magazines and with no shortage of coercion they strong-armed them into taking part in the competition Enix flaunted the competition they were holding to the public as if the very notion of it could make them a martyr for the game industry they would state that if they gave out the cash rewards they were advertising and the game failed to sell then their company would be forced to close its doors they would claim that they were willing to take this risk because it's the right thing to do Enochs was virtue Enix was hope Enix was a light shining on lame and game developers that large corporations were overlooking Enix was the people persons game company Enix was the person any aware and moral person would buy products from just to support the everyday person Enix were bold-faced Liars fact of the matter is the competition Baird little to no risk at all and those who signed up were being exploited by deceptive marketing with reputable developers attached to the project Enix guaranteed themselves two things the first being that people would acknowledge the competition as legitimate and be less hesitant to compete the second being that even if the winning game wasn't that great it would still likely sell enough for Enix to break even due to the programmers cult following when Enix advertised the competition they claimed the winner would receive a prize of 1 million yen they promised the winner would receive royalties on every copy sold in addition to this they promised the winners would be flown to the United States to attend Apple fest in 1983 this was deceptive to say the least the cash prize was hardly a cash prize at all what the cash prize really was was an advanced payment of royalties and a trip to a SAN francisco-based computer Expo Enix thought for sure that no game would sell so little that they couldn't afford to pay 1 million yen in advance royalties to its creator upfront but if it did fail then they had no obligation to give creator anymore money outside of the advance and all they would have lost is a few dollars plus the price of a trip what the participants thought they were getting was 1 million yen plus royalties plus the trip that wasn't the case essentially developers were selling their game for nothing more than a small cut of royalties and a trip to the other side of the world this stirred outrage in small communities but the outrage never exploded into the general public Enochs found a way that they could publish competent games and make money off them without investing anything more than a few dollars to advertise a competition in a magazine the competition itself was part of an even larger plan through the competition Enix plans to grow a network of developers who are willing to work with them with this network of developers Enix would gain exclusive rights to publish and distribute their games while investing little to nothing to bring about their creation the plan was a smashing success one of the first games that won Enix is programming competition and was published in 1983 on home computers was a title known as love matched tennis by a then-unknown independent game developer named Yuji Horii prior to winning the competition Horry was a literature graduate from Waseda University working as a freelance writer for various newspapers comic books and magazines following his win he dedicated himself nearly entirely to video game development with little writing jobs on the side including but not limited to a weekly column in shounen jump you G's trip to Apple fest in 1983 had led him to discover the series wizardry unbeknownst to anybody at the time this discovery would have a profound effect on the future of RPGs as a whole although his first published game was a sports title he would put his education to use making visual novel adventure games going forward the first of which he called poor topia the game of course was published through Enix and would have a legacy as one of the works that most inspired Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid franchise following the release of poor topia Enix was sent a postcard by a man named KO ichi Sugiyama KO ichi Sugiyama had a growing reputation for his work composing jingles and pop songs and reached out to Enix to offer praise for the work the composer on poor topia had done shocked that a real celebrity had written words of praise to them in responded by offering him a job Sugiyama took the opportunity and began work composing the music for world golf and wingman to Rory meanwhile would continue work with his visual novels until 1986 1986 would see an unexpected trio of future superstars come together and changed the industry forever thanks to her ease weekly column and shown and jump he was able to network with a manga artist named Akira Toriyama Akira Toriyama was then commissioned to design characters for horrors of coming title similarly thanks to her ease networking with Enix he was able to have Koichi Sugiyama placed in his employment with the writing style Hori formed through developing his visual novels with the gameplay mechanics inspired by wizardry and Ultima artwork by Akira Toriyama music by Koichi Sugiyama a streamlined and intuitive user interface and control scheme and the expert directing abilities of koichi nakamura the pieces had all aligned Horace this game was Dragon Quest although most market enthusiasts at the time were sure an RPG with a fantasy setting was destined for failure it went on to sell over 1.5 million copies in Japan alone making Enix an instant household name Enochs had made it at least that was the case in Japan having no international division Enix had allowed Nintendo to handle the localization of Dragon Quest Nintendo did not release a localized version until 1989 however where they had renamed the game to Dragon Warrior anticipating massive sales following the success of The Legend of Zelda which Nintendo felt was similar in nature Nintendo produced far too many copies as it would seem the game already appeared dated to American audiences to get people interested and to clear up stock Nintendo started giving away free copies of Dragon Warrior with every new subscription to Nintendo Power although this was working in Dragon Warrior was gaining traction in the West Nintendo had a new golden boy on the horizon who was rushing in hard to steal the spotlight that new golden boy was Final Fantasy [Music] born in 1957 Masafumi Miyamoto was the expected successor to his father's power line construction company called den Musha Masafumi studied at Waseda University but never had a firm grasp on what he wanted to do for a living while he did take work at his father's company he had a deep interest in the manufacturing of women's clothing this interest wouldn't go too far however over years of corporate expansion Daniel Shah had become a conglomerate and many different job opportunities had opened up in 1983 Masafumi took on a position as a programmer in Denya Shahs software division although he was expected to work as most game developers did at a time on his lonesome Masafumi knew that with the right team assembled they could turn out better products and expect greater success so Masafumi began scouting talent in a rather covert and unconventional way Masafumi opened up a computer cafe and observed the work of those who came in to use the computers patrons who exhibited exceptional skill were offered positioned in Denya software division as game programmers one person of note that he hired through this process was future square CEO Hisashi Suzuki very early after his hire Hisashi Suzuki introduced a young up-and-coming college dropout named Hironobu Sakaguchi to the company with a small team assembled they immediately began working on their first title the death trap with part-time worker Hironobu Sakaguchi heading the project's design the death trap was a text adventure game that while receiving very little fanfare was profitable enough for them to begin working on a sequel quickly after release from 1983 up until 1986 Square would produce games for home computer systems as a branch of Denia shah while occasionally porting games to the famicom such as the 1985 port of the arcade run-and-gun shooter texture in 1986 they were ready to go all in square was spun off of den new shah as an independent entity with Masafumi Miyamoto acting as the new company's president with this newfound freedom Masafumi was able to hire Hironobu Sakaguchi full-time as the director of planning and development although the third entry in the final deathtrap trilogy was published for personal computers by the new independent we're the new direction of the company was to focus solely on game development for the Nintendo Famicom and that's exactly what they've done despite being very wary of developing games for home consoles while they were working under Denia shah the new square was entirely in favor of it although he Renault who longed to create an RPG square felt the sales on home console simply wouldn't cover the cost of development and so they focused on more small projects that would have shorter development cycles and be more likely to turn a quick profit for the next year Square would develop and publish game after game after game by December 7th of 1987 Square had 13 Famicom games to their name the amount of these that were successful could be counted on a single hand Square was in dire straits the company that was given from father to son was in risk of closing down the independence that once resembled freedom had become a leash tied to a heavy stone thrown out to sea it was taking everything in their power to stay afloat and keep their head above water all around them companies were seeing mass success in ways that seemed to spite square and only Stoke their envy one such company was Enix with their release of dragon quests taking Japan by storm square was out of options now is the time to let Hironobu do what he always wanted what square thought would always be a failure the moment arrived for Hironobu Sakaguchi to begin work developing his first ever RPG although sakaguchi had to go ahead to begin development it would be an uphill battle on every front with each failed game that came before sakaguchi got more and more strict on his staff with his notoriety as a hard-ass very few people wanted in on the project only three people agreed to work with him voluntarily having nobody to blame by himself for the lack of support he received us Square Sakaguchi looks to outside sources for new help here he found and hired Co each EEC who would go on to create the second and Setsu franchise he also hired akitoshi kawasu who would later create the saga franchise the last addition to the main team of seven came when ma fooi hired Nasir gabelli an iranian-american programmer whose previous work on the Apple 2 advanced the 3d shooter genre in the early to mid 80s Sakaguchi was a big fan of Nasir being all Drock enough to ask him for his autograph upon meeting him at work but this year's experience was not exactly the most transferable to the RPG genre when told that one of the main battle mechanics involved attacking your opponent to lower their hit points Mesilla responded by asking what hit points were eventually sakaguchi found it so frustrating explaining the mechanics of an RPG to Nasir that he simply told him to stop worrying about how it works and just code what he was told to nestea or obliged although still taking most of his inspiration from wizardry and Ultima just as Enix did with Dragon Quest Sakaguchi's end goal was to simply make something different than Dragon Quest that would still attract the same customers part of this meant dialing back on things that Dragon Quest oversimplified or otherwise streamlined Sakaguchi implemented an elemental weakness system and allowed the players to form their own parties both standard practices for the Western RPGs that inspired the game but neither of which could be found in Dragon Quest when it came time for character designs Square followed exactly in Enix his footsteps and looked for an established artist to work with Co ete she recommended yoshitaka amano but sakaguchi had never heard the name before so he rejected the proposal instead sakaguchi showed Ichi some art clippings from a magazine saying this is the kind of art that I want the art and Sakaguchi's hand was none other than the art of yoshitaka amano so Amano was given the job Nobu you and Matsu was still in the employ of square so he was assigned to the music development went ahead relatively smoothly as square inch closer and closer to bankruptcy midway through development squares B team joined to aid development of the game the time for release was getting near Sakaguchi shopped a work-in-progress version of the game two magazines all around Japan although few agreed to review it 200,000 copies of the cartridge were initially created to be sent out but sakaguchi requested 400,000 at 400,000 units Sakaguchi could expect the game to get a sequel and sakaguchi needed a sequel as did square if the game wasn't successful Sakaguchi would be forced to quit game development and go back to finish his university studies and square would have to close down square gave in to Sakaguchi and agreed to make 400,000 units banking it all on a project they had little to no faith in they had nothing to lose to avoid copyright issues with the tabletop games square renamed the title from fighting fantasy to Final Fantasy and they released the game although any title with alliteration would have done Final Fantasy became symbolic over the years game development was not Masafumi stream but those who he brought into his company live for the dream to craft interactive adventures to be played and adored by the masses to tell stories to take audiences places that they've never been in ways they've never been this was their fantasy without Square to pursue this fantasy through this chapter of their lives may very well have come to a close and the fantasy would have died with them with the game on store shelves the employees at square wondered if they had a hit if they broke even if they could keep the lights on at work that day and have food to bring home to their families tomorrow when it hit it hit hard weird of the game spread fast all four hundred thousand units eventually sold through with an additional 200,000 sold on the MSX development on a sequel began shortly after Nintendo handled a localization to North America and within about two and a half years the game released and proceeded to sell even more than it did in Japan Europe would not see a release of the game until 2003 but it hardly mattered although Dragon Quest was still the most popular game in Japan what mattered most to Square was that they were destroying Dragon Quest in the rest of the world and they had succeeded from the bottom to the top Square had become a sensation they had their enemies on the ropes the fantasy of those that Square had now become a reality but there was more damage that could be done square one the battle on foreign soil but they were losing the battle on home turf the fantasy was saved but it hadn't yet reached its full potential the war between Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy Enix and square was just beginning [Music] it's September of 1990 video game enthusiasts in the West have finally realized the grand majesty of the JRPG following the may release of Final Fantasy it was primetime for the genre to take hold and to rake in the sales however Enix had lost something they previously had something powerful that they would find was not an easy thing to replace Enix had lost Nintendo of America's support what this meant was that Enix was on their own to facilitate the localization of their other Dragon Quest games they opened a u.s. subsidiary of Enix this subsidiary immediately began work on porting Dragon Quest 2 to the west under the title Dragon Warrior - despite the series already being at its fourth entry in Japan despite RPGs finally being a fully understood genre on the West Dragon Warrior 2 would still prove to be a tough sell Dragon Quest 2 saw a number of changes in its gameplay most notably being the new party battle system Nakamura initially wanted to target a six-man party similar to what he saw in wizardry however technical limitations prevented this and the party was limited to 3 though the game was improved in nearly every category save for 1 the project still could not be fully realized due to cartridge space limitations causing alternate endings to remain on the cutting room floor among other quest lines and subplots many of which would not be seen until remakes some years later or were otherwise repurposed as content in Dragon Quest 3 all in Dragon Quest 2 is unused space on cartridge was a dire 10 bite during its Japanese development the game was delayed to adjust balance and make it easier yet this did not do enough to prevent its reputation the game shipped 2.4 million units in Japan alone but long held a reputation for its difficulty even today it is still considered among the hardest in its series being the tough sell that it was expected to be Enix u.s. recoded a small portion of the games who now allow for battery-powered save files as opposed to the original password system employed in the Japanese version they were ultimately hoping this could cut back on some of the tedium and offer a quality of life mechanic that would make the game more accessible to Western audiences sales and reception in the West were durable but not groundbreaking or even particularly noteworthy as it would seem the games were appearing dated and uninviting from the moment of their release in the West and this is not a lesson Enochs would learn for quite some time as 1992 rolled around Enix USA found themselves in an odd situation the Super Nintendo was already taking hold in North America yet there were still two more Dragon Quest games for the Famicom not yet released in the West to keep the releases consistent Enix USA continued to support the NES and this may have been the decision that ultimately sent them back Dragon Quest 3 the seeds of salvation was yet another massive improvement in the series seeing many general quality of life changes made to its presentation and functionality a new class system for the party members were made as well as the inclusion of a day and night cycle with quests tied to specific times of the day password systems were dropped entirely in favor of battery saves from the get-go and for once Yugi felt the game's build was perfect to his vision when the game released in Japan it was a smash success selling over a million copies on day one and seeing over 300 students arrested for truancy in their ill-gotten attempt to get the game as early as possible nothing could possibly stop the force known as Dragon Quest in Japan with such a legacy and such confidence from the game's creator it would certainly be a shame for the West to never receive it but continuing the Dragon Quest tradition it was too little too late to be truly appreciated this wasn't due to a lack of effort or care however as Enix USA really tried their damnedest to make this game appealing by adding new colorful title screens new prologue content to ease players into the adventure additional music to fill out certain scenes and events and even more music from the fourth Dragon Quest game that was yet unreleased in the West this effort was all for naught upon its official release in the West Dragon Warrior 3 scene the same criticisms as the first to the game was ugly and outdated not only wasn't outdated for the console that released on however but the console itself was quickly becoming outdated this of course didn't help matters at all when the fourth and final Dragon Quest game for the NES released nine months later Dragon Quest four chapters of the chosen was a unique game among the Dragon Quest series the game in chapters each chapter focusing on a different character and their adventure with all of the characters uniting in the final chapter to take on the penultimate foe outside of this the vast majority of the game's mechanics we had seen in the previous entries nothing else made it stand apart too much from the other games upon release in Japan the game sold well becoming the fourth highest selling game on the Famicom to date and it received many awards from reputable gaming magazines some of the game's characters were even popular enough to be given their own spin-off games on the Super Famicom such as torn echo no daibouken a game that would never release outside of Japan when it came time to release Dragon Quest 4 in the West the NES was already on its deathbed the resource is given to handle the localization were less than the previous entries and so this entry remained largely unimpaired to the rest aside from the basic religion and violent censors seen all over gaming at the time needless to say Dragon Warrior 4 sold terribly so much so that tracking down a copy of this game today is no easy task as Enix observed the success of Final Fantasy in the West how the series grew while their efforts brought diminishing returns the truth was clear and undeniable for the time being this was effectively the end of Dragon Quest or Dragon Warrior as it was known in the West though Enix America still existed for the next few years Enochs America would solely focus on the localization of non Dragon Quest titles and would shift their efforts to the Super Nintendo though they localized some great games like Evo and Robo Trek sales were inconsistent at best in an effort to turn a profit Enochs employed an American company to produce a game specifically for American audiences this game was called king arthur and the knights of justice though it was based on an already established IP it was a little-known one and the affiliation did very little to help the game in the end the game began and remained as an exclusive North American release though that may have been due more to the games reception then to a calculated marketing move on Enochs his behalf the game reviewed and sold terribly with reviewers likening it to a cheap Secret of Mana ripoff that was ugly and poorly made in almost every regard wurst it still appeared to be outdated with its use of password systems and a complete inability to save a game to a file something that had become a simple and expected quality of life mechanic for games of this sort to add insult to injury the game stood no chance of standing out releasing in the same month as squaresoft's Chrono Trigger Enix suffering yet another defeat at the hands of their archrival looked to make drastic changes to how they sell and advertised games in the West this drastic change was to simply stop doing it they could not compete and every attempt to do so proved fruitless in November of 1995 just six months after the release of Enix his first ever North American exclusive title Enix America closed down and Dragon Quest entered a long period of absence in the West Dragon Warrior died silently in the shadow of a fantasy [Music] the North American release of final fantasy on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990 seen great success and set Squaresoft up for incredible opportunities yet new questions and challenges laid before them by the time the first Final Fantasy released North America two other games had already been released in the series in Japan and a fourth was being worked on for the next-generation console so Square had a decision to make continue localizing the games in the order of their release and risk putting their games on a dying and restricting console leaving them open to the same criticisms Dragon Warrior seen since the beginning or jump ahead and only localize the ones that will look good in the moment given the troubled development cycles of Final Fantasy 2 & 3 it would be a shame to not release them in the West Final Fantasy 2 compared to the first was a near wholly unique experience the team size for development was expanded and Hironobu was promoted from the position of main player to director despite all of his follies programming Final Fantasy 1 nasir returned to work on the second and third however midway through development of both he had to leave Japan and return to the States in response to his expired work visa in a true display of solidarity both Times Square decided the show must go on and so the rest of the development team followed this year to the United States where they completed work on the games 364 days to the release of Final Fantasy 1 Final Fantasy 2 was released in Japan the games sold and reviewed decently well and in 1990 following the success of Final Fantasy 1 in North America in English localization for the second game began Final Fantasy 3 wasn't releasing in Japan around the same time Final Fantasy 2 localization was beginning Final Fantasy 3 was a massive game for the NES and managed to sell well and review extremely high however the magnitude of Final Fantasy 3 eventually spelled doom for any more NES releases of the Final Fantasy games in North America the long amount of time it was taking to translate the second title and deal with all the Hardware restrictions was not too pleasing to squaresoft's higher-ups and they realized this meant a localization of Final Fantasy 3 was absolutely out of the question to add to their stresses squaresoft had plans of developing two more Final Fantasy game simultaneously and even more ambitious final fantasy from the NES called Final Fantasy 4 and a new Final Fantasy for the SNES called final fantasy 5 time resources and localization concerns collapsed on them and they decided to cancel plans for the then 80% complete Final Fantasy 4 on the NES and focus all development efforts on the SNES game which then took on the title of Final Fantasy 4 in tandem to this decision they decided the time and effort that was being spent on Final Fantasy 2 in the West was ultimately a waste of time and could be better spent elsewhere localization efforts were dropped on Final Fantasy 2 midway through production with all efforts being refocused into their first 16-bit RPG on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System however this game wouldn't be called Final Fantasy 4 in the West instead it would release as Final Fantasy 2 leading to many years of confusion for Western audiences ultimately this decision to keep the releases modern and to dump all efforts into a single focused attack paid off though it meant not releasing a few games and cancelling what they had already put money into they were handsomely rewarded with immense critical acclaim Final Fantasy 4 or 2 as it was known in the West was a mechanically new fresh and exciting game the ATB system resonated as more engaging for many Western gamers and all around the game scene immense critical praise and sales but it didn't quite manage to hit the sales of the first Final Fantasy in an attempt to make Final Fantasy more accessible to current gen gamers in the West Square made a more streamlined game that was very relaxed and difficulty compared to the others this game released in 1992 under the name mystic quest and would later release in Japan as Final Fantasy USA though certain aspects of the game were well received it was heavily criticized for its pandering and condescending nature towards who it was being marketed to and it ultimately failed to garner much new interest in the series though sales of the title were still decent shortly after mystic quest released in America work began on an official localization of Final Fantasy 5 though this would end up being cancelled due to a general feeling of inaccessibility for Western audiences initially Square attempts to release the game as a spin-off but failed to follow through on it over the course of six years Final Fantasy 5 was picked up for localized Station by three different companies with intent on putting it on different platforms and each time the localization was canceled in a strange twist of fate this landed Final Fantasy five a unique legacy as one of the first ever fully fan translated games thankfully Final Fantasy 6 seen greater lock in the localization department having started development in 1992 immediately after the completion of Final Fantasy five Final Fantasy 6 spent one full year in development Hironobu Sakaguchi at the time was the executive vice president for Squaresoft so his ability to work directly on new games was extremely hindered this led to him splitting director responsibilities between two rising stars Yoshinori Kitase II and Hiroyuki Ito Hironobu himself assumed the role of producer such a shift in focus often spells doom for a series however the new set of ideas the directors brought to the table seems to only elevate the already meteoric rise of the series critical appeal when the game released in North America it ranked among the year's top 10 selling games and top of the sales of the previous release but as good as this sounded according to Sakaguchi this was not enough to determine the game a commercial success and sales were still unable to reach what the first Final Fantasy achieved mystic quest could not Drudge up new players all the critical accolades in the world couldn't bring in the sales development and localization costs were getting higher as a return on investment was getting lower RPGs though only alive for short while were a flame flickering dangerously close to extinguishing unless something changed Final Fantasy faced going the same way as their former rival Dragon Warrior [Music] 1995 Dragon Quest for all intents and purposes was dead in the West final fantasy' at its greatest to date could not reach commercial success status RPGs though desirable were too much effort to consistently release and support though they would continue to come out earthbound June 1995 Chrono Trigger August 1995 Super Mario RPG May 1996 every release was a gamble and bigger more complicated projects were simply denied localization Tales of Phantasia December 1995 Star Ocean July 1996 games that we would never see released on the SNES in the West something needed to happen to reignite the spark of the RPG enthusiasts and make it burn brighter than it ever had before without something massive to change how people felt about the genre all around support for could simply not continue luckily for gamers unanimously that something massive was just around the corner at the tail end of 1994 a new renaissance was beginning in gaming after numerous failed attempts at creating a new console with already established console manufacturers Sony blew up on the scene with their very own in-house game system called the Sony Playstation the PlayStation strength wasn't in being the first to do any one thing but in being the first to do many desired things well supporting an optical drive capable of larger games at a cheaper rate of production a comfortable and intuitive controller native support for 3d rendering as well as off board file storage without the use of any tacked on or overpriced peripherals a new and accessible world of opportunities opened up to game developers and game players though gradual at first the Sony Playstation gained supporters the same way a snow ball games mass as it careens down the side of a mountain feeling the cartridge style of Nintendo's old and upcoming consoles to be overly restrictive RPG developers turned to the Sony Playstation in mass now there was no such thing as a game too large as the game could always be expanded on to more and more disks and save files could be carried over from disk to disk with the use of the off board memory storage system such things were previously impossible on Nintendo's consoles with all these new abilities at their disposal Square began work on several new projects and tried many different types of games to be the next Final Fantasy at one point in development Xenogears was intended to be Final Fantasy 7 though this did not come to pass after a three-year development cycle starting from concept designs to completion Square brought out their new entry a nearly completely transformed version of what Final Fantasy had been in the past spread over three discs and sold in a single package though other versions of Final Fantasy were experimented with limitations of competitor systems made it unreasonable not even the Nintendo 64's disk drive could handle the game not only would it require over 30 disks to fit the whole game but the consoles limited memory made it run horribly in certain encounters by all accounts Final Fantasy migrated to the Sony Playstation out of necessity to facilitate the evolution of the genre and series and it became clear immediately that adopting this new platform was the right move the game was a smash hit in Japan but North America was another matter all-together feeling that their games had consistently under sold in the West's Squaresoft wasn't too interested in localizing Final Fantasy 7 however Sony in their never-ending attempts to hold something over the competitors heads worked with Square to game publishing rights internationally Square accepted their bargain with this Square got to work immediately on localizing Final Fantasy 7 as per the deal not only with the game now launched in North America but also in Europe where the series had long been neglected so near an ambitious advertising campaign to sell the title allotting roughly 40 million dollars be spent on marketing 20 million of which was used on North America alone it was a gamble to be sure but one Sony had great confidence in despite squaresoft's initial hesitation when the multi disc 3d adventure finally hit store shelves in North America everything changed word got around to retailers of the games Masek in Japan and how it sold over 2 million units in just three days so retailers tried to beat their competitors to the punch by releasing the game before it was due out within a month Final Fantasy 7 had sold over 500,000 units in North America surpassing the previous two releases within three months the game passed over 1 million units in North America making it the most popular Final Fantasy title to date currently Final Fantasy 7 has sold over 11 million units worldwide Sony took a gamble and it paid off for every company and for every gamer involved for a number of years RPGs were in drip supply and they were managing to impress less and less but when Final Fantasy 7 landed in 1997 perception towards the genre shifted instantaneously all of a sudden gamers collectively felt the need to get more out of their money by buying these long engaging titles they felt the weight of the worlds and characters now newly reimagined with polygons instead of sprite pre-rendered backgrounds granted realism to environments previously unseen on consoles they learned the depth of storytelling that could exist in video games where such things previously were incredibly rare Final Fantasy 7 sold the PlayStation and made it a force to be reckoned with at the time and perhaps more than we give it credit for it saved the JRPG in the West with Final Fantasy 7 being worth more than its weight in gold and the JRPG now being a hot and desirable thing where was the game that started the RPG craze to begin with the game Square ode thanks to for being the sole influencing factor that started Final Fantasy off to begin with where was Dragon Quest it was prime time for Enix to take another shot at the Western audience and that's just what they were gonna do but when they came they didn't come full force and immediately bring the IPS that they were famous for Dragon Quest would remain largely absent in the West for a little while longer Enochs decided to end their years of silence through joint efforts with other video game publishers in 1997 they first broke their silence by allowing Nintendo to release their IP mischief-makers on the n64 which seen middling sales and acclaim though it did gain a cult following over time they tried the North American market again in 1998 by allowing Atlas to release one of their IPs known as eggs of Steel a poor game in nearly every regard Enoch still wasn't confident in their IPs being able to reach commercial success in the West perhaps hoping Sony would work the same magic they did with Final Fantasy 7 and not willing to put their own money on the line to gamble on the localization of such a big game in 1997 Enix made a deal allowing Sony to publish Star Ocean the second story for the PSX well work on the release of Star Ocean was underway through Enix and Sony Enix decided to give America one more big shot before Star Ocean released Enix opened a new American division and set to work on releasing busting groove to bust a groove managed to make it to store shelves just two months before Star Ocean while it reviewed OK its sales were lackluster enough that it became something of a rarity Star Ocean on the other hand reviewed and sold favorably but sales were immoral on par with Final Fantasy 6 than they were with Final Fantasy 7 Enix was still not exactly breaking through in the West these middling sales and mixed reviews would continue for years making many of their games cult hits and collectors pieces going forward though they were indeed climbing in popularity slowly but steadily by 1999 their efforts while paling in comparison to their competitors abroad were strong enough that the Tokyo Stock Exchange listed the company under Section 1 acknowledging it as a large-scale corporation however stock values were inconsistent and stockholders weren't exactly happy about it this inconsistency wasn't just limited to Enix either as Square grew and development cycles got longer and production costs went up their stockholders grew tired and insecure at every large release for each company their stocks would soar higher than previous records though between them stocks would decline overall stocks were on the decline more often than they were on the rise with the cost of every new business venture going higher and higher all it would take is one major flop to put either company in dire straits square stayed afloat with Final Fantasy games consistently selling and reviewing well with smaller more experimental games releasing intermittently Enix played their best hand and took Dragon Quest to the west once more in 2001 with the release of Dragon Warrior 7 but the response was quite in line with their previous releases this done little more than secure their middling stock values for Enix the future was already sent even at their best they couldn't compete international growth could not occur without an industry shake-up or an advertising campaign on a level they simply couldn't afford but a shake-up would come in an unlikely form in the hubris of their biggest competitors Squaresoft were undoubtedly considered the kings of the JRPG around the world but building alongside this reputation was their growing reputation of having mastered their in-game cinematics the world could see what square was capable of both in written and visual storytelling and so desire for a Final Fantasy movie began to grow strong among gamers this desire was like sweet honey in the ears of squaresoft executives who opened their own filmmaking division in 1997 called square pictures they began work preparing for a movie almost immediately but not much was known of it until the year 2000 squaresoft was creating a feature-length Final Fantasy movie titled Final Fantasy the Spirits Within not only was this their first feature film but this was the first 3d animated feature film to target photorealistic graphics Hironobu Sakaguchi was set to direct the movie with Moton Ori Sakakibara co-directing although this gamble was going to be a large one square pictures was set for a massive success that is until the full scope of their ambition revealed itself having little to no experience making feature-length films let alone 3d animated photorealistic ones they realized over the course of development that what they learned creating video games and what they shaped their expectations around could not realistically be carried over into this new venture with the initial budget rumored to be around 70 million dollars they quickly surpassed it four years in development powering over 900 state-of-the-art computers rendering over 140,000 photorealistic frames of animation a list actors and international release plans all of this culminated to push this 1 hour and 47 minute expected blockbuster to cost roughly 107 million dollars to produce with such a high budget the movie needed to be a success and so an additional 30 million dollars was spent on advertising bringing the grand production total to just over 137 million dollars square was confident in their work and gamers around the world were excited to finally experience what they long anticipated in 2001 they finally got the chance eighty-five million dollars worth of ticket sales later the movie was a flop unable to make its budget back Square finally took a gamble that didn't pay off and their investors were none too happy although squaresoft themselves could handle the blow especially with the coming profits from the release of Final Fantasy 10 this was a mortal blow to investors trust Square needed to make it up to their investors and to do something to show them that the long lols between stock increases would come to a stop Square needed to prove that they weren't a gamble that it would take a lot more than a flopped movie or a flopped game to tank them but they couldn't do this on their own square reached out to the one large company they knew were facing the exact yo-yo patterns in the stock market that they were square extended a hand to their greatest rivals their greatest inspiration creators of Dragon Quest the RPG kings of the East Square reached their hand out to Enix if they were to unite forces as a single company their product output too would nearly double and rate they would bridge the gaps in each other's releases and stop the dreaded yo-yo pattern they both face not only this but with a star power Square had in the West dragon quest would also stand a better chance of getting recognized without spending excessive amounts on marketing all of this sounded good and Enix did show an interest in partnering with square but Enix were also in something of a crisis themselves and they were a tad hesitant in the year prior to this offer Enix struck deals with other game companies and though the deals they struck were promising problems at home only continued to grow rising development costs and delayed games found them facing one of their worst fiscal years in a long time their stock was down 40% in the year 2000 but they still believed they could power through in 2001 another delayed game struck a massive blow to their bottom line and to investor trust ultimately this resulted in Enix only making 11% of their q1 projections with Enix and Square both wounded it became clear that Enix and Square did in fact need each other to survive though the merger was intended to happen before the end of 2002 it was delayed until spring of 2003 when the company's merged they took on the name square Enix with Enix being the one that held sole ownership though this merger also granted Enix new resources they had never had before allowing them the opportunity to once again shut down the North American division of Enix in favour of relying on squares resources during this period Square Enix published Dragon Quest 8 in Japan and North America and also empower agents not only was this the first Dragon Quest game to get to drop the Dragon Warrior title overseas but was also the first main line entry to release in Europe the game went on to become one of the most successful Dragon Quest games in North America and the highest selling game on the PlayStation 2 in Japan in addition to this it raked in fantastic critical acclaim and won many prestigious awards including best RPG of III 2005 beating out other games such as Kingdom Hearts 2 this would be the only Dragon Quest game released under this iteration of Square Enix shortly after the merger many longtime square employees were beginning to feel the direction Square was going and how they would change their approach to development was not what it used to be Square was heading in a direction many of its pillar members did not want to follow during this period Square had Final Fantasy 12 and development in fact the game had been in development since 2000 but the development process was a rough one with lead directors having to leave partway through development due to health concerns and many years having to be spent simply on developing the tools for the new game perhaps due to a combination of all that was going on here in oh boo sakaguchi stepped down from his position as squares executive vice president in 2004 two years before the release of Final Fantasy twelve Hironobu in conjunction with Microsoft had opened his own game development company this company was called mist Walker and would go on to create titles such as Lost Odyssey for the Xbox 360 and the last story for the Nintendo Wii despite numerous game cancellations along the way mist Walker is still in operation today as is here Innovas newest venture Don Walker despite its tumultuous development cycle final fantasy 12 did release in 2006 to mask critical acclaim and high sailes no looking back people now identify it as one of the many stones on the path that led final fantasy' to being anything but true to its roots in late 2008 Square Enix renamed itself to Square Enix Holdings a holdings company and subsequently spun off all of its development and publishing branches as one new unified company named Square Enix which existed as one of the new Square Enix Holdings many subsidiary companies this is the square Enix that exists today though debate remains over the direction of both companies and the quality of their content over time the fact remains that despite some walls along the way and some more economically sensible Gamble's Square Enix has been on a steady climb for the last 5 years straight and with some highly anticipated games on the horizon they show no signs of slowing down once adversaries they fought each other in a desperate attempt to survive though as allies they reached higher and further than they ever could have on their own Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy in the end needed each other and gamers needed RPG developers to find a middle ground to unify their forces if they didn't it's not too likely the RPG would be what it is today [Music] [Music]

Channel: Tarks Gauntlet

Views: 132,252

Keywords: The history of Square Enix, Square enix before the merger, History of Square, History of Squaresoft, History of Enix, History of Final Fantasy, History of Dragon Quest, Square enix, Squaresoft, square pictures, Enix, Chunsoft, Dragon Quest, Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Mistwalker, Yuji Horii, The spirits within, E.V.O., den yu shaw, Merger, The history of the JRPG, Love Match Tennis, Koichi, Sugiyama, Nakamura, Uematsu, nobou, Akira Toriyama, Yoshitaka Amano

Id: dRE90AnejdI

Length: 50min 5sec (3005 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 03 2018